


Under Oath

by summerstorm



Category: Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Pointlessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Swearing an oath is not a drinking game; you can't just lie as you see fit, and Alicia doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Oath

**Author's Note:**

> Comment fic for the prompt -- "hiding the monsters underneath one's bed," if memory serves.

Swearing an oath is not a drinking game; you can't just lie as you see fit, and Alicia doesn't. What she knows, what she saw, what she might have suspected come as easy as you might expect; Peter protected her, and this is why. She can sit on a stand and say, "I don't know." The heavy lifting of the case as it pertains to him and him only falls to his legal team. The omissions and strategizing fall to his legal team. Nearly everything Alicia says on record has been run by them beforehand, but that never makes it less truthful. She imagines Peter added some kind of clause to their contract to avoid them divulging his secrets to her. She knows his legal team adheres to it. When they talk to her, they talk about presentation.

She worries. She worries she'll say too much. She worries she'll mention something that will hurt him. She worries she won't. She runs through every word four times before speaking, considers the implications.

She never feels like she's being entirely honest, but she doesn't lie. She believes in the tenets of the legal system, and she's under oath, and she won't. Nobody asks her to. Peter makes sure nobody asks her to.

It's not until his final appeal that she starts shaking.

When she's put on the stand, they don't ask her about Peter; they don't ask about his marriage, their marriage. They ask about hers. They ask about her kids and her feelings and what kind of furniture she plans to share with her husband.

It's humiliating and out of line and irrelevant.

They ask her about seeing a lawyer specialized in divorce. She almost laughs. She knows this is how it works: the prying, the assumptions, the hopeless attempts to shed light on a crime by proxy. She practices law, not for the first time. If that weren't enough, she's been under scrutiny for the past year.

It was only a meeting. That's what she tells everyone. It was only a meeting. There were two phone calls, three if she adds the time she couldn't get through his secretary, and one face-to-face meeting. That's all that happened. That's what they need to know. That's what's _relevant_ to Peter's appeal. Her husband had cheated on her. He'd lied to her. Of course she thought about divorcing him. She thought about it, she consulted a lawyer, she dismissed it. They're still married. He's welcome home.

She holds her head high and says as much. She's not going to say anything else. They seem to understand that.

None of it is a lie. None of it is an omission. It's all the truth that matters, and it's all the truth she tells.

She feels like she's lying. _Nobody needs to know_ , what is that? It's right, it's self-preservation. On a stand, in the courtroom, she's not among friends: she's among lawyers who will suck out her pain through a straw and drink it up to make the night go easier. They don't deserve to know how much she loves or doesn't love someone, and they certainly don't need it. If dismissing the real possibility of divorce wasn't the last step, if she thought about it again, if she's never stopped thinking about it—it's her business. It affects her and Peter and their kids; it doesn't affect Glenn Childs or his office.

She thinks about it in loose terms, anyway. She thinks about it when Peter's in jail, during the appeal, when Eli tells her about being careful in case she's tracked, when it turns out it's Grace they went after; she thinks it wouldn't make a difference. These things would still happen, and getting a divorce would make them harder on everyone. Keeping her family together is reasonable, it's a _good_ decision: they've gone through so much they're each other's only support system.

She thinks about it when she's had a bad day with Peter, when the part of her that's not sure staying is the right decision is on edge: it's not over yet, but it could be. She thinks about it when she's had a bad day and Peter's there for her: it could be, if she'd gone about things differently, but she's glad it's not over yet.

She thinks about it when Owen tells her she's sticking to her marriage because of her mother. She considers it. It's not a leap, it's a fairly obvious possibility, but it hadn't crossed her mind before. It doesn't cross it after. She's not avoiding her mother's mistakes. She doesn't think she's avoiding anything.

She talks to Kalinda about it, sometimes, when she has a couple of drinks on her and Kalinda asks. Kalinda's a good listener. Kalinda never shares, so she's almost forced to be. Kalinda's convinced Alicia should have left Peter the second she saw his face supported by a marquee bearing the word "prostitute" on TV. Kalinda doesn't really believe in second chances when it comes to men. Alicia doesn't ask if she believes in second chances when it comes to women.

She thinks about it when Will looks at her. She knows he's there for her. She knows he'd be there to catch her, and she knows he'd let her fall if she needed it. They've known each other for so long he can tell how much space she needs without asking. She thinks she could talk to him. It would be awkward, but she could talk to him. He would get it. Whatever she decided, whatever she was considering, he would get it. Will knows a decision this big can't be about somebody else, can't be about him. Even if she decided to—to leave Peter, to put herself through that ordeal, she wouldn't do it thinking of Will as her _next_. Maybe he would be, maybe the timing would finally be right, but she wouldn't leave Peter for him. She thinks about that, too, sometimes, and it's the funniest thing in the world, the most absurd. She's not eighteen anymore. This isn't about changing boyfriends.

The truth is, she's not ruling out anything. She's waiting. She's thinking, and she's waiting.

There's not much more she can do.


End file.
